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铭佳
gives me a lot of homework

{/Amazing Animals --

Sunday, February 24, 2008 ( 4:47 AM )

Hi, one and all! Here are a few amazing animals...

1. BLACK-TAILED PRAIRIE DOG
They are hardy and social animals. They are about 11-13 inches long and have a tail about 3-4 inches long. They live in burrows deep in the ground. They are tan with a whitish or buff-white belly and the ends of their tails are sparsely covered with black hair. They have small ears and reasonably large eyes.

Each black tailed prairie dog family unit keeps the area they live in and defends its area against neighbouring coteries. They also maintain social structure through a kissing ritual - they kiss with bare teeth. Prairie dogs live from 3 to 5 years.

2. BALD EAGLES
Bald Eagles are magnificent animals. They are averagely 3 feet long, with a wing span of 2.4 meters across. They also have gigantic nests that are 2.7 meters wide, 6.1 meters tall and weighs up to 1,814 kilograms. Bald eagles live along the coast and on major lakes and rivers where they feed mainly on fish. Their amazing eyesight enables them to spot a fish 1.6 km away. When they spot their prey, they drop at an astounding rate of 161 km/hr and with their razor-like talons, grab their meal and fly away to savour it.

Bald Eagles also have a very sharp beak. The hook at the tip is used for tearing. Behind the hook, the edge sharp enough to slice tough skin, over laps the lower, creating a scissors effect. A bald eagle's beak is a strong weapon, but is also delicate enough to feed a small portion of food to a newly hatched chick.

The life-span of the Bald Eagle is about 15-20 years.

3. OCTOPUS
The octopus is an interesting creature with eight arms. They could be up to 3 metres long, although commonly smaller and could weigh 25 kg. One of the best known features of Octopuses is the fact that they have eight arms. The mouth is made up of a parrot-like beak and a toothed tongue. It is used to drill holes into the shell of crabs, shrimp, even clams and snails, through which paralysing saliva is injected. Octopuses may control more active prey like crabs by nicking one of the crab's eye tips with its mouth and injecting toxins straight down the optic nerve into the animal's brain.

Many octopuses take advantage of their flexibility by squeezing themselves through tiny holes into burrows. An octopus with a 30-centimetre arm span can squeeze through a hole the size of a five cent piece. Would you believe that? Still octopuses have had to develop a wide range of other defences to escape predators.

Octopuses have developed exceptional camouflage capacities. They produce elaborate colour patterns and highly complex skin textures capable of matching a wide range of backgrounds from sand and reef rubble, through to spiked corals and seaweeds. Their skin changes almost instantaneously as they move over different substrates on the sea floor.

As a backup defence, most octopuses also have an ink sac that produces highly concentrated black, red or brown pigment. Small amounts of ink are squirted out the funnel to produce either a dummy decoy or a full smoke screen that can mask a volume of water up to several cubic metres, leaving predators chasing their own tails. The ink is also thought to dull the senses of the predator.

4. POLAR BEARS
Polar bears are one of the world's largest carnivores. Males can weigh up to 800 kilograms and measure three metres in length. Male bears can be twice the size of females. Their coat is thick, made up of hairs which conserve heat, and varies in colour from white to creamy yellow, even light brown in summer. Under this dense coat is black skin, good for absorbing the rays of the Arctic sun.

On thin ice, a polar bear relies on its snowshoe feet to distribute its weight as it searches the ice for prey. When the ice gets thinner still, the bear will resort to crawling on its knees and elbows to make it across. Similarly, there have been reports of polar bears covering their black noses with a giant paw so their camouflage against the snow will be complete as they stalk seals.

Polar bears are also great swimmers. They won't hesitate to swim across a bay and they'll swim for hours at a time in the summer. Their streamlined bodies are well adapted for swimming. Their body fat helps them float and they use their large forepaws to paddle and sometimes use their hind legs as rudders.

Bears capture seals, by waiting for them at breathing holes and at the edge of leads or cracks in the ice. They also stalk seals resting on top of the ice and catch young seals by breaking into chambers in snow on top of the ice in the spring. Bears prey to a lesser extent on bearded seals, walruses, and beluga whales. They also feed on carrion, including whale, walrus, and seal carcasses they find along the coast. A keen sense of smell, extremely sharp claws, patience, strength, speed, and the camouflaging white coat aid in procuring food.

5. BLOBFISH
The blobfish is a deepwater fish rarely seen by humans. It is found along the shores of Australia and Tasmania. Blobfish are made mostly of jelly. This jelly flesh weighs less than water, allowing them to float, and conserving energy otherwise spent in an attempt to stay off the sea floor. It is also an alternative to a gas-filled swim bladder, a feature of many fish in shallower water. At 800 metres deep, the pressure is about 80 times higher than at sea level, so any gas would be too compressed to serve the purpose. Their lack of muscles is no hindrance – they have a feeding strategy that consists of sitting and waiting for something edible to pass.